SummaryEuropean incursions onto the narrow isthmian pass that divided and connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans made it a strategic node of the Spanish Empire and a crucial site for early modern globalization. On the front lines of the convergence of four continents, Old Panama offers an unusual opportunity for examining the diverse, often asymmetrical impacts of cultural and commercial contacts. The role of Italian, Portuguese, British, Dutch, and French interests in the area, as well as an influx of African slaves and Asian merchandise, have left a unique material legacy that requires an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to its varied sources. Bones, teeth and artifacts on this artery of Empire offer the possibility of new insights into the cultural and biological impact of early globalization. They also invite an interdisciplinary approach to different groups’ tactics for survival, including possible dietary changes, and the pursuit of profit. Such strategies may have led the diverse peoples inhabiting this junction, from indigenous allies to African and Asian bandits to European corsairs, to develop and to favor local production and Pacific trade networks at the expense of commerce with the metropolis.
This project applies historical, archaeological and archaeometric methodologies to evidence of encounters between peoples and goods from Europe, America, Africa and Asia that took place on the Isthmus of Panama during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Forging an interdisciplinary approach to early globalization, it challenges both Euro-centric and Hispano-phobic interpretations of the impact of the conquest of America, traditionally seen as a demographic catastrophe that reached its nadir in the so-called seventeenth-century crisis. Rather than applying quantitative methods to incomplete source material, researchers will adopt a contextualized, inter-disciplinary, qualitative approach to diverse agents involved in cultural and commercial exchange.

European incursions onto the narrow isthmian pass that divided and connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans made it a strategic node of the Spanish Empire and a crucial site for early modern globalization. On the front lines of the convergence of four continents, Old Panama offers an unusual opportunity for examining the diverse, often asymmetrical impacts of cultural and commercial contacts. The role of Italian, Portuguese, British, Dutch, and French interests in the area, as well as an influx of African slaves and Asian merchandise, have left a unique material legacy that requires an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to its varied sources. Bones, teeth and artifacts on this artery of Empire offer the possibility of new insights into the cultural and biological impact of early globalization. They also invite an interdisciplinary approach to different groups’ tactics for survival, including possible dietary changes, and the pursuit of profit. Such strategies may have led the diverse peoples inhabiting this junction, from indigenous allies to African and Asian bandits to European corsairs, to develop and to favor local production and Pacific trade networks at the expense of commerce with the metropolis.
This project applies historical, archaeological and archaeometric methodologies to evidence of encounters between peoples and goods from Europe, America, Africa and Asia that took place on the Isthmus of Panama during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Forging an interdisciplinary approach to early globalization, it challenges both Euro-centric and Hispano-phobic interpretations of the impact of the conquest of America, traditionally seen as a demographic catastrophe that reached its nadir in the so-called seventeenth-century crisis. Rather than applying quantitative methods to incomplete source material, researchers will adopt a contextualized, inter-disciplinary, qualitative approach to diverse agents involved in cultural and commercial exchange.

Max ERC Funding

1 998 875 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31

Project acronymAUTAR

ProjectA Unified Theory of Algorithmic Relaxations

Researcher (PI)Albert Atserias Peri

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2014-CoG

SummaryFor a large family of computational problems collectively known as constrained optimization and satisfaction problems (CSPs), four decades of research in algorithms and computational complexity have led to a theory that tries to classify them as algorithmically tractable vs. intractable, i.e. polynomial-time solvable vs. NP-hard. However, there remains an important gap in our knowledge in that many CSPs of interest resist classification by this theory. Some such problems of practical relevance include fundamental partition problems in graph theory, isomorphism problems in combinatorics, and strategy-design problems in mathematical game theory. To tackle this gap in our knowledge, the research of the last decade has been driven either by finding hard instances for algorithms that solve tighter and tighter relaxations of the original problem, or by formulating new hardness-hypotheses that are stronger but admittedly less robust than NP-hardness.
The ultimate goal of this project is closing the gap between the partial progress that these approaches represent and the original classification project into tractable vs. intractable problems. Our thesis is that the field has reached a point where, in many cases of interest, the analysis of the current candidate algorithms that appear to solve all instances could suffice to classify the problem one way or the other, without the need for alternative hardness-hypotheses. The novelty in our approach is a program to develop our recent discovery that, in some cases of interest, two methods from different areas match in strength: indistinguishability pebble games from mathematical logic, and hierarchies of convex relaxations from mathematical programming. Thus, we aim at making significant advances in the status of important algorithmic problems by looking for a general theory that unifies and goes beyond the current understanding of its components.

For a large family of computational problems collectively known as constrained optimization and satisfaction problems (CSPs), four decades of research in algorithms and computational complexity have led to a theory that tries to classify them as algorithmically tractable vs. intractable, i.e. polynomial-time solvable vs. NP-hard. However, there remains an important gap in our knowledge in that many CSPs of interest resist classification by this theory. Some such problems of practical relevance include fundamental partition problems in graph theory, isomorphism problems in combinatorics, and strategy-design problems in mathematical game theory. To tackle this gap in our knowledge, the research of the last decade has been driven either by finding hard instances for algorithms that solve tighter and tighter relaxations of the original problem, or by formulating new hardness-hypotheses that are stronger but admittedly less robust than NP-hardness.
The ultimate goal of this project is closing the gap between the partial progress that these approaches represent and the original classification project into tractable vs. intractable problems. Our thesis is that the field has reached a point where, in many cases of interest, the analysis of the current candidate algorithms that appear to solve all instances could suffice to classify the problem one way or the other, without the need for alternative hardness-hypotheses. The novelty in our approach is a program to develop our recent discovery that, in some cases of interest, two methods from different areas match in strength: indistinguishability pebble games from mathematical logic, and hierarchies of convex relaxations from mathematical programming. Thus, we aim at making significant advances in the status of important algorithmic problems by looking for a general theory that unifies and goes beyond the current understanding of its components.

Max ERC Funding

1 725 656 €

Duration

Start date: 2015-06-01, End date: 2020-05-31

Project acronymBePreSysE

ProjectBeyond Precision Cosmology: dealing with Systematic Errors

Researcher (PI)Licia VERDE

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2016-COG

SummaryOver the past 20 years cosmology has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. Accuracy accounts for systematic errors which can be both on the observational and on the theory/modelling side (and everywhere in between). While there is a well-defined and developed framework for treating statistical errors, there is no established approach for systematic errors. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. This will shrink the statistical errors, making mitigation and control of systematics of the utmost importance. While there are isolated and targeted efforts to quantify systematic errors and propagate them through all the way to the final results, there is no well-established, self-consistent methodology. To go beyond precision cosmology and reap the benefits of the forthcoming observational program, a systematic approach to systematics is needed. Systematics should be interpreted in the most general sense as shifts between the recovered measured values and true values of physical quantities. I propose to develop a comprehensive approach to tackle systematic errors with the goal to uncover and quantify otherwise unknown differences between the interpretation of a measurement and reality. This will require to fully develop, combine and systematize all approaches proposed so far (many pioneered by the PI), develop new ones to fill the gaps, study and explore their interplay and finally test and validate the procedure. Beyond Precision Cosmology: Dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSysE) will develop a framework to deal with systematics in forthcoming Cosmological surveys which, could, in principle, be applied beyond Cosmology.

Over the past 20 years cosmology has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. Accuracy accounts for systematic errors which can be both on the observational and on the theory/modelling side (and everywhere in between). While there is a well-defined and developed framework for treating statistical errors, there is no established approach for systematic errors. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. This will shrink the statistical errors, making mitigation and control of systematics of the utmost importance. While there are isolated and targeted efforts to quantify systematic errors and propagate them through all the way to the final results, there is no well-established, self-consistent methodology. To go beyond precision cosmology and reap the benefits of the forthcoming observational program, a systematic approach to systematics is needed. Systematics should be interpreted in the most general sense as shifts between the recovered measured values and true values of physical quantities. I propose to develop a comprehensive approach to tackle systematic errors with the goal to uncover and quantify otherwise unknown differences between the interpretation of a measurement and reality. This will require to fully develop, combine and systematize all approaches proposed so far (many pioneered by the PI), develop new ones to fill the gaps, study and explore their interplay and finally test and validate the procedure. Beyond Precision Cosmology: Dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSysE) will develop a framework to deal with systematics in forthcoming Cosmological surveys which, could, in principle, be applied beyond Cosmology.

Max ERC Funding

1 835 220 €

Duration

Start date: 2017-06-01, End date: 2022-05-31

Project acronymBIGSEA

ProjectBiogeochemical and ecosystem interactions with socio-economic activity in the global ocean

Researcher (PI)Eric Douglas Galbraith

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), PE10, ERC-2015-CoG

SummaryThe global marine ecosystem is being deeply altered by human activity. On the one hand, rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are changing the physical and chemical state of the ocean, exerting pressure from the bottom up. Meanwhile, the global fishery has provided large economic benefits, but in so doing has restructured ecosystems by removing most of the large animal biomass, a major top-down change. Although there has been a tremendous amount of research into isolated aspects of these impacts, the development of a holistic understanding of the full interactions between physics, chemistry, ecology and economic activity might appear impossible, given the myriad complexities. This proposal lays out a strategy to assemble a team of trans-disciplinary expertise, that will develop a unified, data-constrained, grid-based modeling framework to represent the most important interactions of the global human-ocean system. Building this framework requires solving a series of fundamental problems that currently hinder the development of the full model. If these problems can be solved, the resulting model will reveal novel emergent properties and open the doors to a range of previously unexplored questions of high impact across a range of disciplines. Key questions include the ways in which animals interact with oxygen minimum zones with implications for fisheries, the impacts fish harvesting may have on nutrient recycling, spatio-temporal interactions between managed and unmanaged fisheries, and fundamental questions about the relationships between fish price, fishing cost, and multiple markets in a changing world. Just as the first coupled ocean-atmosphere models revealed a wealth of new behaviours, the coupled human-ocean model proposed here has the potential to launch multiple new fields of enquiry. It is hoped that the novel approach will contribute to a paradigm shift that treats human activity as one component within the framework of the Earth System.

The global marine ecosystem is being deeply altered by human activity. On the one hand, rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are changing the physical and chemical state of the ocean, exerting pressure from the bottom up. Meanwhile, the global fishery has provided large economic benefits, but in so doing has restructured ecosystems by removing most of the large animal biomass, a major top-down change. Although there has been a tremendous amount of research into isolated aspects of these impacts, the development of a holistic understanding of the full interactions between physics, chemistry, ecology and economic activity might appear impossible, given the myriad complexities. This proposal lays out a strategy to assemble a team of trans-disciplinary expertise, that will develop a unified, data-constrained, grid-based modeling framework to represent the most important interactions of the global human-ocean system. Building this framework requires solving a series of fundamental problems that currently hinder the development of the full model. If these problems can be solved, the resulting model will reveal novel emergent properties and open the doors to a range of previously unexplored questions of high impact across a range of disciplines. Key questions include the ways in which animals interact with oxygen minimum zones with implications for fisheries, the impacts fish harvesting may have on nutrient recycling, spatio-temporal interactions between managed and unmanaged fisheries, and fundamental questions about the relationships between fish price, fishing cost, and multiple markets in a changing world. Just as the first coupled ocean-atmosphere models revealed a wealth of new behaviours, the coupled human-ocean model proposed here has the potential to launch multiple new fields of enquiry. It is hoped that the novel approach will contribute to a paradigm shift that treats human activity as one component within the framework of the Earth System.

Max ERC Funding

1 600 000 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30

Project acronymBIODESERT

ProjectBiological feedbacks and ecosystem resilience under global change: a new perspective on dryland desertification

Researcher (PI)Fernando Tomás Maestre Gil

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), LS8, ERC-2014-CoG

SummaryChanges in climate and land use (e.g., increased grazing pressure), are two main global change components that also act as major desertification drivers. Understanding how drylands will respond to these drivers is crucial because they occupy 41% of the terrestrial surface and are home to over 38% of the world’s human population. Land degradation already affects ~250 million people in the developing world, which rely upon the provision of many ecosystem processes (multifunctionality). This proposal aims to develop a better understanding of the functioning and resilience of drylands (i.e. their ability to respond to and recover from disturbances) to major desertification drivers. Its objectives are to: 1) test how changes in climate and grazing pressure determine spatiotemporal patterns in multifunctionality in global drylands, 2) assess how biotic attributes (e.g., biodiversity, cover) modulate ecosystem resilience to climate change and grazing pressure at various spatial scales, 3) test and develop early warning indicators of desertification, and 4) forecast the onset of desertification and its ecological consequences under different climate and grazing scenarios. I will use various biotic communities/attributes, ecosystem services and spatial scales (from local to global), and will combine approaches from several disciplines. Such comprehensive and highly integrated research endeavor is novel and constitutes a ground breaking advance over current research efforts on desertification. This project will provide a mechanistic understanding on the processes driving multifunctionality under different global change scenarios, as well as key insights to forecast future scenarios for the provisioning of ecosystem services in drylands, and to test and develop early warning indicators of desertification. This is of major importance to attain global sustainability and key Millennium Development Goals, such as the eradication of poverty.

Changes in climate and land use (e.g., increased grazing pressure), are two main global change components that also act as major desertification drivers. Understanding how drylands will respond to these drivers is crucial because they occupy 41% of the terrestrial surface and are home to over 38% of the world’s human population. Land degradation already affects ~250 million people in the developing world, which rely upon the provision of many ecosystem processes (multifunctionality). This proposal aims to develop a better understanding of the functioning and resilience of drylands (i.e. their ability to respond to and recover from disturbances) to major desertification drivers. Its objectives are to: 1) test how changes in climate and grazing pressure determine spatiotemporal patterns in multifunctionality in global drylands, 2) assess how biotic attributes (e.g., biodiversity, cover) modulate ecosystem resilience to climate change and grazing pressure at various spatial scales, 3) test and develop early warning indicators of desertification, and 4) forecast the onset of desertification and its ecological consequences under different climate and grazing scenarios. I will use various biotic communities/attributes, ecosystem services and spatial scales (from local to global), and will combine approaches from several disciplines. Such comprehensive and highly integrated research endeavor is novel and constitutes a ground breaking advance over current research efforts on desertification. This project will provide a mechanistic understanding on the processes driving multifunctionality under different global change scenarios, as well as key insights to forecast future scenarios for the provisioning of ecosystem services in drylands, and to test and develop early warning indicators of desertification. This is of major importance to attain global sustainability and key Millennium Development Goals, such as the eradication of poverty.

Max ERC Funding

1 894 450 €

Duration

Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31

Project acronymBSD

ProjectEuler systems and the conjectures of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer, Bloch and Kato

Researcher (PI)Victor Rotger cerdà

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), PE1, ERC-2015-CoG

SummaryIn order to celebrate mathematics in the new millennium, the Clay Mathematics Institute established seven $1.000.000 Prize Problems. One of these is the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer (BSD), widely open since the 1960's. The main object of this proposal is developing innovative and unconventional strategies for proving groundbreaking results towards the resolution of this problem and their generalizations by Bloch and Kato (BK).
Breakthroughs on BSD were achieved by Coates-Wiles, Gross, Zagier and Kolyvagin, and Kato. Since then, there have been nearly no new ideas on how to tackle BSD. Only very recently, three independent revolutionary approaches have seen the light: the works of (1) the Fields medalist Bhargava, (2) Skinner and Urban, and (3) myself and my collaborators. In spite of that, our knowledge of BSD is rather poor. In my proposal I suggest innovating strategies for approaching new horizons in BSD and BK that I aim to develop with the team of PhD and postdoctoral researchers that the CoG may allow me to consolidate. The results I plan to prove represent a departure from the achievements obtained with my coauthors during the past years:
I. BSD over totally real number fields. I plan to prove new ground-breaking instances of BSD in rank 0 for elliptic curves over totally real number fields, generalizing the theorem of Kato (by providing a new proof) and covering many new scenarios that have never been considered before.
II. BSD in rank r=2. Most of the literature on BSD applies when r=0 or 1. I expect to prove p-adic versions of the theorems of Gross-Zagier and Kolyvagin in rank 2.
III. Darmon's 2000 conjecture on Stark-Heegner points. I plan to prove Darmon’s striking conjecture announced at the ICM2000 by recasting it in terms of special values of p-adic L-functions.

In order to celebrate mathematics in the new millennium, the Clay Mathematics Institute established seven $1.000.000 Prize Problems. One of these is the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer (BSD), widely open since the 1960's. The main object of this proposal is developing innovative and unconventional strategies for proving groundbreaking results towards the resolution of this problem and their generalizations by Bloch and Kato (BK).
Breakthroughs on BSD were achieved by Coates-Wiles, Gross, Zagier and Kolyvagin, and Kato. Since then, there have been nearly no new ideas on how to tackle BSD. Only very recently, three independent revolutionary approaches have seen the light: the works of (1) the Fields medalist Bhargava, (2) Skinner and Urban, and (3) myself and my collaborators. In spite of that, our knowledge of BSD is rather poor. In my proposal I suggest innovating strategies for approaching new horizons in BSD and BK that I aim to develop with the team of PhD and postdoctoral researchers that the CoG may allow me to consolidate. The results I plan to prove represent a departure from the achievements obtained with my coauthors during the past years:
I. BSD over totally real number fields. I plan to prove new ground-breaking instances of BSD in rank 0 for elliptic curves over totally real number fields, generalizing the theorem of Kato (by providing a new proof) and covering many new scenarios that have never been considered before.
II. BSD in rank r=2. Most of the literature on BSD applies when r=0 or 1. I expect to prove p-adic versions of the theorems of Gross-Zagier and Kolyvagin in rank 2.
III. Darmon's 2000 conjecture on Stark-Heegner points. I plan to prove Darmon’s striking conjecture announced at the ICM2000 by recasting it in terms of special values of p-adic L-functions.

SummaryVisible light photocatalysis and metal-free organocatalytic processes are powerful strategies of modern chemical research with extraordinary potential for the sustainable preparation of organic molecules. However, these environmentally respectful approaches have to date remained largely unrelated. The proposed research seeks to merge these fields of molecule activation to redefine their synthetic potential.
Light-driven processes considerably enrich the modern synthetic repertoire, offering a potent way to build complex organic frameworks. In contrast, it is extremely challenging to develop asymmetric catalytic photoreactions that can create chiral molecules with a well-defined three-dimensional arrangement. By developing innovative methodologies to effectively address this issue, I will provide a novel reactivity framework for conceiving light-driven enantioselective organocatalytic processes.
I will translate the effective tools governing the success of ground state asymmetric organocatalysis into the realm of photochemical reactivity, exploiting the potential of key organocatalytic intermediates to directly participate in the photoexcitation of substrates. At the same time, the chiral organocatalyst will ensure effective stereochemical control. This single catalyst system, where stereoinduction and photoactivation merge in a sole organocatalyst, will serve for developing novel enantioselective photoreactions. In a complementary dual catalytic approach, the synergistic activities of an organocatalyst and a metal-free photosensitiser will combine to realise asymmetric variants of venerable photochemical processes, which have never before succumbed to a stereocontrolled approach.
This proposal challenges the current perception that photochemistry is too unselective to parallel the impressive levels of efficiency reached by the asymmetric catalysis of thermal reactions, expanding the way chemists think about making chiral molecules.

Visible light photocatalysis and metal-free organocatalytic processes are powerful strategies of modern chemical research with extraordinary potential for the sustainable preparation of organic molecules. However, these environmentally respectful approaches have to date remained largely unrelated. The proposed research seeks to merge these fields of molecule activation to redefine their synthetic potential.
Light-driven processes considerably enrich the modern synthetic repertoire, offering a potent way to build complex organic frameworks. In contrast, it is extremely challenging to develop asymmetric catalytic photoreactions that can create chiral molecules with a well-defined three-dimensional arrangement. By developing innovative methodologies to effectively address this issue, I will provide a novel reactivity framework for conceiving light-driven enantioselective organocatalytic processes.
I will translate the effective tools governing the success of ground state asymmetric organocatalysis into the realm of photochemical reactivity, exploiting the potential of key organocatalytic intermediates to directly participate in the photoexcitation of substrates. At the same time, the chiral organocatalyst will ensure effective stereochemical control. This single catalyst system, where stereoinduction and photoactivation merge in a sole organocatalyst, will serve for developing novel enantioselective photoreactions. In a complementary dual catalytic approach, the synergistic activities of an organocatalyst and a metal-free photosensitiser will combine to realise asymmetric variants of venerable photochemical processes, which have never before succumbed to a stereocontrolled approach.
This proposal challenges the current perception that photochemistry is too unselective to parallel the impressive levels of efficiency reached by the asymmetric catalysis of thermal reactions, expanding the way chemists think about making chiral molecules.

SummaryComputer-generated imagery is now ubiquitous in our society, spanning fields such as games and movies, architecture, engineering, or virtual prototyping, while also helping create novel ones such as computational materials. With the increase in computational power and the improvement of acquisition techniques, there has been a paradigm shift in the field towards data-driven techniques, which has yielded an unprecedented level of realism in visual appearance. Unfortunately, this leads to a series of problems, identified in this proposal: First, there is a disconnect between the mathematical representation of the data and any meaningful parameters that humans understand; the captured data is machine-friendly, but not human friendly. Second, the many different acquisition systems lead to heterogeneous formats and very large datasets. And third, real-world appearance functions are usually nonlinear and high-dimensional. As a result, visual appearance datasets are increasingly unfit to editing operations, which limits the creative process for scientists, engineers, artists and practitioners in general. There is an immense gap between the complexity, realism and richness of the captured data, and the flexibility to edit such data.
We believe that the current research path leads to a fragmented space of isolated solutions, each tailored to a particular dataset and problem. We propose a research plan at the theoretical, algorithmic and application levels, putting the user at the core. We will learn key relevant appearance features in terms humans understand, from which intuitive, predictable editing spaces, algorithms, and workflows will be defined. In order to ensure usability and foster creativity, we will also extend our research to efficient simulation of visual appearance, exploiting the extra dimensionality of the captured datasets. Achieving our goals will finally enable us to reach the true potential of real-world captured datasets in many aspects of society.

Computer-generated imagery is now ubiquitous in our society, spanning fields such as games and movies, architecture, engineering, or virtual prototyping, while also helping create novel ones such as computational materials. With the increase in computational power and the improvement of acquisition techniques, there has been a paradigm shift in the field towards data-driven techniques, which has yielded an unprecedented level of realism in visual appearance. Unfortunately, this leads to a series of problems, identified in this proposal: First, there is a disconnect between the mathematical representation of the data and any meaningful parameters that humans understand; the captured data is machine-friendly, but not human friendly. Second, the many different acquisition systems lead to heterogeneous formats and very large datasets. And third, real-world appearance functions are usually nonlinear and high-dimensional. As a result, visual appearance datasets are increasingly unfit to editing operations, which limits the creative process for scientists, engineers, artists and practitioners in general. There is an immense gap between the complexity, realism and richness of the captured data, and the flexibility to edit such data.
We believe that the current research path leads to a fragmented space of isolated solutions, each tailored to a particular dataset and problem. We propose a research plan at the theoretical, algorithmic and application levels, putting the user at the core. We will learn key relevant appearance features in terms humans understand, from which intuitive, predictable editing spaces, algorithms, and workflows will be defined. In order to ensure usability and foster creativity, we will also extend our research to efficient simulation of visual appearance, exploiting the extra dimensionality of the captured datasets. Achieving our goals will finally enable us to reach the true potential of real-world captured datasets in many aspects of society.

SummaryNaturally-emitted very short-lived halogens (VSLH) have a profound impact on the chemistry and composition of the atmosphere, destroying greenhouse gases and altering aerosol production, which together can change the Earth´s radiative balance. Therefore, natural halogens possess leverage to influence climate, although their contribution to climate change is not well established and most climate models have yet to consider their effects. Also, there is increasing evidence that natural halogens i) impact on the air quality of coastal cities, ii) accelerates the atmospheric deposition of mercury (a toxic heavy metal) and iii) that their natural ocean and ice emissions are controlled by biological and photochemical mechanisms that may respond to climate changes. Motivated by the above, this project aims to quantify the so far unrecognized natural halogen-climate feedbacks and the impact of these feedbacks on global atmospheric oxidizing capacity (AOC) and radiative forcing (RF) across pre-industrial, present and future climates. Answering these questions is essential to predict if these climate-mediated feedbacks can reduce or amplify future climate change. To this end we will develop a multidisciplinary research approach using laboratory and field observations and models interactively that will allow us to peel apart the detailed physical processes behind the contribution of natural halogens to global climate change. Furthermore, the work plan also involves examining past-future climate impacts of natural halogens within a holistic Earth System model, where we will develop the multidirectional halogen interactions in the land-ocean-ice-biosphere-atmosphere coupled system. This will provide a breakthrough in our understanding of the importance of these natural processes for the composition and oxidation capacity of the Earth´s atmosphere and climate, both in the presence and absence of human influence.

Naturally-emitted very short-lived halogens (VSLH) have a profound impact on the chemistry and composition of the atmosphere, destroying greenhouse gases and altering aerosol production, which together can change the Earth´s radiative balance. Therefore, natural halogens possess leverage to influence climate, although their contribution to climate change is not well established and most climate models have yet to consider their effects. Also, there is increasing evidence that natural halogens i) impact on the air quality of coastal cities, ii) accelerates the atmospheric deposition of mercury (a toxic heavy metal) and iii) that their natural ocean and ice emissions are controlled by biological and photochemical mechanisms that may respond to climate changes. Motivated by the above, this project aims to quantify the so far unrecognized natural halogen-climate feedbacks and the impact of these feedbacks on global atmospheric oxidizing capacity (AOC) and radiative forcing (RF) across pre-industrial, present and future climates. Answering these questions is essential to predict if these climate-mediated feedbacks can reduce or amplify future climate change. To this end we will develop a multidisciplinary research approach using laboratory and field observations and models interactively that will allow us to peel apart the detailed physical processes behind the contribution of natural halogens to global climate change. Furthermore, the work plan also involves examining past-future climate impacts of natural halogens within a holistic Earth System model, where we will develop the multidirectional halogen interactions in the land-ocean-ice-biosphere-atmosphere coupled system. This will provide a breakthrough in our understanding of the importance of these natural processes for the composition and oxidation capacity of the Earth´s atmosphere and climate, both in the presence and absence of human influence.

Max ERC Funding

1 979 112 €

Duration

Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31

Project acronymCOMIET

ProjectEngineering Complex Intestinal Epithelial Tissue Models

Researcher (PI)Elena Martínez Fraiz

Host Institution (HI)FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE BIOENGINYERIA DE CATALUNYA

Call DetailsConsolidator Grant (CoG), PE8, ERC-2014-CoG

SummaryEpithelial barriers protect the body against physical, chemical, and microbial insults. Intestinal epithelium is one of the most actively renewing tissues in the body and a major site of carcinogenesis. Functional in vitro models of intestinal epithelium have been pursued for a long time. They are key elements in basic research, disease modelling, drug discovery, and tissue replacing and have become prime models for adult stem cell research. By taking advantage of the self-organizing properties of intestinal stem cells, intestinal organoids have been recently established, showing cell renewal’s kinetics resembling to the one found in vivo. However, the development of in vitro 3D tissue equivalents accounting for the dimensions, architecture and access to the luminal contents of the in vivo human intestinal tissue together with its self-renewal properties and cell complexity, remains a challenge. The goal of this project is to engineer intestinal epithelial tissue models that mimic physiological characteristics found in in vivo human intestinal tissue, to open up new areas of research on human intestinal diseases. The proposed models will address the in vivo intestinal epithelial cell renewal and migration, the multicell-type differentiation and the epithelial cell interactions with the underlying basement membrane while providing access to the luminal content to go beyond the state-of-the-art organoid models. To do this, we propose to develop an experimental setup that combines microfabrication techniques, tissue engineering components and recent advances in intestinal stem cell research, exploiting stem cell self-organizing characteristics. We anticipate this setup to recapitulate the 3D morphology, the spatio-chemical gradients and the dynamic microenvironment of the living tissue. We expect the new device to prove useful in understanding cell physiology, adult stem cell behaviour, and organ development as well as in modelling human intestinal diseases.

Epithelial barriers protect the body against physical, chemical, and microbial insults. Intestinal epithelium is one of the most actively renewing tissues in the body and a major site of carcinogenesis. Functional in vitro models of intestinal epithelium have been pursued for a long time. They are key elements in basic research, disease modelling, drug discovery, and tissue replacing and have become prime models for adult stem cell research. By taking advantage of the self-organizing properties of intestinal stem cells, intestinal organoids have been recently established, showing cell renewal’s kinetics resembling to the one found in vivo. However, the development of in vitro 3D tissue equivalents accounting for the dimensions, architecture and access to the luminal contents of the in vivo human intestinal tissue together with its self-renewal properties and cell complexity, remains a challenge. The goal of this project is to engineer intestinal epithelial tissue models that mimic physiological characteristics found in in vivo human intestinal tissue, to open up new areas of research on human intestinal diseases. The proposed models will address the in vivo intestinal epithelial cell renewal and migration, the multicell-type differentiation and the epithelial cell interactions with the underlying basement membrane while providing access to the luminal content to go beyond the state-of-the-art organoid models. To do this, we propose to develop an experimental setup that combines microfabrication techniques, tissue engineering components and recent advances in intestinal stem cell research, exploiting stem cell self-organizing characteristics. We anticipate this setup to recapitulate the 3D morphology, the spatio-chemical gradients and the dynamic microenvironment of the living tissue. We expect the new device to prove useful in understanding cell physiology, adult stem cell behaviour, and organ development as well as in modelling human intestinal diseases.